Mind Fart
by The Nerdinator
Summary: New Heroes, S1E5. The gang discovers a new ability of Jetpack's, and that Fartor is changing the chemical composition of Clarkburg's air to that of flatus. As the effects of oxygen deprivation set in, Jetpack becomes the only Grossologists who can defeat Fartor - but can a robot with a brain the size of a walnut really save the day alone?
1. Cold Open

In the deep, darkest regions of Clarksburg, a mysterious device lay silent.

But not for long.

A red-gloved hand reached over and turned it on. A cloud of nearly colorless brown gas filled the room.

The bloodshot eyes of the owner of the hand smiled evilly. "My plan," he said, "is going to work for sure."

(Cue theme song).


	2. Spectrum Seer

**AN: This fic is set on September 12, 2014**

* * *

"Okay class, today's discussion will concern elemental spectra," chemistry teacher Niels Rutherford said to his students.

Among his students was a short, brown-haired, glasses-wearing kid, a lanky black-haired superpowered mutant, and a six-foot-tall robot who looked like a butterfly. The three boys looked on, very interested in what was going on.

"Every compound has its own spectra," Mr. Rutherford went on, "and that allows us to identify it by the color of light it emits. Even the most similar spectra have enough differences for us to identify them. For example, which compound is lithium chloride?" He dipped two popsicle sticks, each one into a different solution, and lifted them over a Bunsen burner. They caught flame, both producing very similar shades of red.

No one could tell which was which.

No human, anyway.

* * *

The world looked much different through Jetpack's yellow eyes. For one thing, there were hundreds of times the colors visible to humans. But that isn't important right now.

What is is that Jetpack's antennae detected the specific wavelengths of light the fires gave off. One set of spectra identified itself in Jetpack's vision, as a picture of a large atom bonded to a smaller one appeared.

 **Lithium chloride (LiCl)**

The other one identified itself soon after, represented by two balls joined to a third, arranged in a straight line.

 **Strontium chloride (SrCl2)**

Jetpack now knew the answer.

* * *

His four-fingered right hand shot up.

"Yes, Jetpack?" Mr. Rutherford asked the robot, anticipating a meaningless question the young machine had.

"The one on the left is lithium chloride," Jetpack said.

"Very good! I wasn't expecting a right answer on the first try."

Everyone else was dumbfounded.

Ty's jaw dropped to the desk. Andy noticed and put it back into Ty's mouth for him.

* * *

"How were you able to do that?!" Ty asked his brother.

"Yeah, it was so cool that you could do that on the first try," Andy added.

"It was easy," Jetpack replied simply. "I just did a chemical analysis."

"Chemical analysis? How?"

"My boppers."

"You mean antennae," Ty said to his brother.

"Right, right. I can see what makes up everything."

"Very impressive," Andy said. "I bet you can identify anyone just by the chemical composition of their DNA."

"...What's DNA?"

"We'll explain later," Andy said. "Bye guys. I have to get to my next class. You guys?"

"We ended up with a lot of frees this year," Ty replied. "I don't know _how_ exactly, but we did. See ya later, Andy."

Andy left.

"I will say this, it makes going to the you-know-what more convenient," Ty said.

A familiar sound filled the air.

"Speaking of which," he continued, flipping out his Grossometer.

"Archer boys! We've had a report of a mass onion and turnip theft. We're not sure which villain of the ACE is behind it, but we know it has to be one of them," The Director said.

"Why?" Jetpack asked.

"Because who else has access to GIANT ROBOT CLAWS that tear through everything?!"

Jetpack protracted his own claws.

"Point made, pun not intended. Well, I'm sure Lab Rat hasn't gone rogue...then again maybe not..."

The transmission ended.

Jetpack retracted his claws.

"Why didn't I think of that?" Ty said. "That would have been an excellent pun."

Jetpack looked at him.

"I guess you don't know what a pun is. Oh well, we have to go anyways."

The two brothers raced off to the Gag Lab and suited up.


	3. Flatusphere

The two had arrived to their local supermarket to find that the produce section was in shambles.

"Poor store," Jetpack said.

Ty found a vegetable he had never seen before on the floor and ate it. His body glowed. "All right! I have kohlrabi morph now! How I will use it is another thing."

"Which brings us to an important question: how does your morphing-thingy get morphs?"

"I don't know. Usually I have them all, but plants are the exception. If I haven't eaten it, I don't have its morph."

"That is weird."

"So is life. Anyways, maybe you can do a chemical analysis of the area to see what exactly is happening."

Jetpack complied. His antennae began to twitch.

* * *

In Jetpack's view of the world, he saw the compounds that made up air, represented by colorful spheres arranged in specific patterns. Two blue spheres triple-bonded (nitrogen gas) took up most of the air, followed by two red spheres double-bonded (oxygen gas). Every once in a while he saw a lone cyan sphere (argon), and even less often one of the rarer noble gases in the atmosphere.

Jetpack's temperature sensor told him that it was warmer than it normally was. Jetpack sweeped his antennae to the left.

He found out why the temperature had increased.

He saw two red balls double-bonded on opposite sides of a smaller black ball (carbon dioxide), four tiny white balls single-bonded to a black ball in a tetrahedral arrangement (methane), two white balls bonded to a large yellow ball so that it looked like Mickey Mouse (hydrogen sulfide), and many, many combinations of white, black, and yellow balls arranged into different patterns (methanethiol, dimethyl disulfide, dimethyl sulfide, methyl mercaptan, and dimethyl trisulfide).

Now, Jetpack knew from a documentary that carbon dioxide and methane were natural components of the atmosphere. But there were more of them than he normally saw, and the sulfur compounds probably should not have been there.

* * *

Once finished, Jetpack told Ty what he had seen.

"Wow," Ty said. "All those gases are only found naturally in one place: human flatus. I don't need Chester to tell me that Fartor is behind this."

Jetpack walked behind the remains of an onion crate. "He's not here."

"Not _literally_ , Jetpack. I mean he's the one who's changing the atmosphere. He must have started this so that everyone will have to adapt to what he breathes. Must be starting with the city first."

"Um...I don't know much, but whatever this 'breathing' is, I don't do it."

Ty paused for a moment. "Right. You're a robot. No lungs. No need for lungs either."

"Also, why would everyone become a fart-breather? Wouldn't they all die?"

"I guess Fartor must have some mutagen on him to help with that. I mean, _I_ once became a fart-breather, so there had to be something like that in my system."

Jetpack looked at him, perplexed.

"In the original series, Fartor turned me into his evil minion," Ty explained. "It's been almost two years since that happened, and I _still_ have nightmares from it."

"Oh," Jetpack said. "Why did he want a sidekick?"

"Because he needed that particular scheme to go smoothly, and I'm smarter than Abby. Obviously, I was the better choice."

"Which brings us to an important question: what would happen if Abby became evil?"

"She'd probably strike out on her own and become her own villainess. She's very independent, our sister."

Ty looked at the crime scene before him. "Okay. Back to the lab we go. Lab Rat really needs to know about this."

The brothers left.

As soon as they were completely gone, Fartor emerged from behind an onion crate that was still intact.

"So the robot really _doesn't_ breathe," Fartor said to himself. "I will definitely need to plan around that."


	4. Dr Dementia

"This is bad," Lab Rat said, having been told everything about their finding at the store.

"No duh," Ty replied. "What we need is to find out our next course of action. Paige is sick, so we don't have access to her strategizing. But then again, Abby and I were fine without that for two years straight. Lab Rat, is there anything we need to worry about?"

"Quite a lot, actually," Lab Rat replied. He pulled up a bunch of computer graphics that helped to explain what he was talking about. "What Fartor is doing is removing oxygen from the air and replacing it with the gases found in farts. If the human body doesn't get enough oxygen, the person will get cyanosis - a bluish coloration from the lack of sufficient oxygen."

"So _that's_ why Fart-face is blue," Ty commented.

"Oxygen is vital to aerobic creatures like humans," Lab Rat went on. "Without it, we'll die. Fartor obviously was mutated in some fashion so that what he breathed more or less completely switched over to flatus. Also, there's the dementia."

"Dementia?"

"Without oxygen, we'll get brain damage and go nuts."

"Ty is already insane," Abby said. She and Naomi had just shown up. "That radioactive waste did a number on his noodle."

"I can _regrow_ my brain, you know," Ty said. "I won't do it _now_ , but if I need to I will."

The screen of the main transmitter flickered on, revealing The Director. "Grossologists. There's been a new development with the Fartor business. Apparently someone found the device he's using to pump the city with."

"Well, I guess that's our cue to start our shift," Naomi said.

"Good luck out there, Ni," Ty said. "Tell my nemesis I said I promised to kick his butt when I next see him."

"Will do, dear."

She and Abby headed off to the GRS-1.

"See? That right there is the reason I agreed to having six agents," The Director said, smiling. "Now we can switch out who's on a mission and who isn't, so we can keep everyone's secret identities secret."

"In that case, Jetpack and I better go back to school," Ty said. "Come on, bro; The Catcher in the Rye won't read itself, you know."

"It won't?"

"Nope. Books can't read themselves."

"Wow..."

They left.

"Man, Jetpack is such a moron," Abby muttered from where she was standing next to the GRS-1. "It's like his brain is the size of a walnut."

"It is, actually," Naomi replied.

Cue diagram with a drawing of Jetpack's brain, next to a drawing of a walnut. Both are the same size.

"I mean," Abby continued as the two girls strapped themselves into their jet-powered green vehicle, "can he actually function?"

"He's young, Abby. I think he only seems like an idiot because he isn't as old as us. Give him some time, and he'll catch up."

"And if he doesn't?"

"Someone's cynical today."

"I'm cynical by default."

* * *

 **Some time later...**

Jetpack looked a bit frazzled from what he had read so far from the book.

"Don't worry, you'll get used to it," Ty said.

Suddenly, there was running, and a hyperactive blonde plowed through them, before slamming into the fourth wall.

"Hey Sam," Ty said, unfazed in the slightest.

Now that Paige had no more need for her façade as a prissy popular girl, Sam and Alex were able to show their true selves as well. Alex turned out to be a very calm, levelheaded, and quiet girl; Sam, on the other hand, was incredibly lively and quirky, and Ty had found she'd actually reminded him a lot of himself. Which may have been how he had started warming up to the girl.

Speaking of which, Sam peeled herself off the fourth wall and said, "Hey guys!"

"Hello," Jetpack said simply.

"Say, have you guys seen my stuff? I need one of those half-circle thingies for math, but I can't find my backpack."

"Half-circle thingy? I have one you can use," Jetpack said, opening his chest compartment and pulling out a protractor. Sam happily took it, gave him a hug and a "Thanks!" before zipping off again.

"Her hands are purple," Jetpack said.

Ty realized that. "Oh, crud. The mass cyanosis is starting. Abby and Naomi better stop Fartor soon..."


	5. The Enpurpling

The GRS-1 touched down outside of a massive cylindrical device, bellows pumping and squeezing huge quantities of sulfur compounds and methane into the atmosphere. Guarding it was a blue-skinned man protected from the outside world via a hoversuit. A massive pair of mechanical arms tipped with three-fingered claws sprouted from the back of the suit.

"Fartor," Naomi said.

"Hello again, nerdling," the villain replied, not bothering to turn around, but instead opting to swing one of his robot arms at her. Naomi quickly dodged it. "Has my nemesis left me a message? I need to know what he's doing if he's going to try to stop me again."

"Yeah, he's going to kick your sorry, gassy behind back to prison, the only place that you _belong._ " Naomi gritted her teeth, softly growling.

"Wow, whatever happened to the sweet, timid girl?" Fartor asked, still not turning around.

"I've been teaching her trash-talking," Abby said, pride in her voice. "It's gone pretty well, I must say."

Finally turning around, Fartor said, "And _I_ must say...I smelt it, for I dealt it." Pressing a button on the control panels of his hoversuit, Fartor watched as a massive cloud of flatus spewed forth from his machine, enveloping the two girls.

Fartor grinned. "All this gas is enough to keep you air-breathers at bay. Your cognitive abilities and rationale? Gone. The dementia is setting in, and until I mutate you along with the rest of Clodsburg...you'll be no problem at all."

"hEY...fARTOR..." Abby said. The large amount of gas she inhaled was starting to make her lose her rational bits. "yOUR tEETH lOOK bETTER."

"Oh, thank you," Fartor said, grinning to reveal an intact set of teeth. "I just love these new dentures."

* * *

"Crap," Ty said.

Via special cameras Lab Rat had decided to include in the slop goggles, Ty had been able to see his sister and his girlfriend reduced to the teenage equivalent of senile old men.

"Bad, idn't it?" Chester asked. "Rhetorical question, don't answer."

"We need to stop Fartor," Lab Rat said. "Chester, Ty, you're up. Good luck out there." The transmission ended.

"What about me?" Jetpack asked.

"I'm sorry little buddy, but I don't think you can handle this one," Chester said. "There's experience you just don't have. Defeating Fartor will take brains, not brawn."

"And you'd better believe that I'm loaded with both," Ty said smugly. "Sorry Jetpack. I'll try to make it up to you."

He and Chester left.

"...Dangit," Jetpack said.

* * *

Ty and Chester arrived at the pump. Naomi and Abby were sitting on the ground, staring blankly into space.

"Oh no..." Chester said.

"Fartor! Where the heck are you?!" Ty roared. "I swear, one false move and I beat your fu-"

Cue second massive gas cloud.

"So predictable," Fartor said. "All the Grossologists, all incapacitated. But where is the robot?"

"wE dIDN'T bRING hIM," Ty said. "sEEING mE lIKE tHIS wOULD nOT bE gOOD fOR rOBOT bUGS."

Fartor couldn't follow that logic, but he just shrugged and said, "On the plus side, I don't need to worry about him now."

* * *

Jetpack, on the other hand, was worrying.

His chemical analyses had told him that the oxygen content in the atmosphere around Clarksburg had dropped to 19.7% of the atmosphere.

 _I don't know much,_ the robot thought, _but I think Chester told me that if the air went to under 19.5 per sense...no, that's not right...19.5 percent...yeah that's better...people would get tired and stuff._ _And I can't do anything to stop it_.

He sighed.

Then he noticed someone walking by. "Andy?"

Andy's face and torso were covered in a specialized breathing apparatus.

* * *

 **AN: Dementia-induced speech iS wRITTEN lIKE tHIS.**

 **And if you're wondering why I wrote this chapter this way, it was so I could set up Jetpack saving the day by himself.**

 **And Andy gets to help.**


	6. Robots Are Awesome, Nuff Said!

**AN: Get ready for the longest chapter in a New Heroes story yet!**

* * *

"Hi Jetpack," Andy said.

"What's that thingy on your head?" Jetpack asked.

"Oh, that's an oxygen concentrator. A few hours ago I noticed that the amount of oxygen in the air suddenly began dropping, so I just took a few spare parts and made this. Neat, huh? I was thinking about making you one, but I didn't have the size for your head."

"I don't breathe."

Awkward silence.

"Oh, okay."

"Who do you think is doing this?" Jetpack asked, playing dumb (which was not very hard).

"I'm not sure, but I started smelling farts everywhere a few minutes ago, so I guess it's probably Fartor."

"The blue fat guy in the flying suit?" Jetpack asked.

"Yeah, him."

Suddenly the Grossology theme tune began to sound. Andy looked at Jetpack, who got an idea and said, "That's my phone. Maybe a Nigerian prince wants to give me money! What money do they use in Nigeria? Anyway, I gotta take this."

Andy bought it.

* * *

Jetpack zipped into the nearest boy's bathroom and pulled his Grossometer out from his chest compartment.

"Jetpack! Fartor used his flatus pump to render the others unable to perform. You're the only one we have left," Lab Rat panicked.

"What about you?"

"There's no way I'm going outside! Bad stuff always happens to me!"

"But...the others said I might not have the experience."

"That may be so, but I nonetheless built you to be a fighting machine." This surprised Jetpack. "You have retractable claws that can slice through Kevlar. You're stronger than a full-grown man. You can fly. You have not one, but _two_ fluid cannons in your abdomen. Sure, you're as naive as a newborn, but your morals are in the right place. Now get out there and stop Fart-face!"

"Thanks a bunch Lab Rat!" Jetpack smiled, which looked weird because of his lack of teeth.

* * *

Jetpack came out of the bathroom. "It was a wrong number. An Angolan prince wanted to give the Nigerian prince money."

"I thought those countries didn't have any princes anymore...although considering the state they're in, who knows?" Andy said.

"Hey, I have an idea," Jetpack said, choosing his words carefully. "Why don't we stop Fartor ourselves? That way none of you humans will die."

"That's a really good idea! But how are we going to get there?"

"Leave that to me."

* * *

"I SHOULD NOT HAVE LEFT THAT TO YOU!" Andy exclaimed.

Jetpack was flying, carrying Andy with his feet. He flew to the spot where the pump had been sighted (as he has a tracking system for the new grossometers), and zoomed in.

"There are Grossologists down there. Think we should help?" Andy asked, noticing the technicolor specks near the pump.

"Nah, they can handle it," Jetpack fibbed.

From behind the pump, a new Fartzilla emerged, Fartor at the helm.

"Are we going to handle that?" Andy asked.

"Yes. Yes, we are. You take the dinosaur; I'll go after the pumpy-box."

Jetpack used his legs to swing Andy into the air, then slam-dunked him down to Fartzilla's face.

"ANDYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!" Andy hollered as a makeshift battle cry.

* * *

"This is most excellent," Fartor said, blissfully unaware of what was happening. "With all this flatus, I will finally get my revenge on Gary. And then...the world!"

 _CLUNK._

Andy landed on Fartzilla's forehead and, pulling out a wrench, tried to take it apart from the outside.

Fartor set his robot on autopilot, opened the cranial hatch, shut it behind him, and faced Andy. "Another one? Sheesh, can't you heroes ever give it a rest?"

"Not until you do," Andy snapped in response, slamming the wrench into his hand for dramatic emphasis.

Fartor removed his suit. "Ah..." he sighed, breathing the flatulent air. "I can breathe the air now. It's time for you to _die_!" And with that he and Andy began to tussle, Fartor trying to disable Andy's breathing apparatus, Andy trying to hit Fartor in the goolies with the wrench.

* * *

During all this, Jetpack arrived at the pump and slashed its bellows open with his claws. A massive gust of pure, unadulterated oxygen gas flooded out and began to dissipate into the air. One by one, his teammates returned to their old selves.

"Allow me to be the first to say: ow," Naomi groaned, rubbing her temples in pain.

"Allow me to be the first to say: what's the plan, Stan?" Chester asked Jetpack.

"That's not my name," Jetpack said.

"Jetpack, you idiot, that's just an expression," Abby grunted. "And furthermore, what are you going to do about Fartor?"

Jetpack scanned through his photographic memory. "Ty, can you use whatever that weird onion thing is that you got today?"

* * *

The air had begun to return to normal, which meant that Fartor had to return to his suit.

"Aw, big bad guy can't breathe?" Andy said, taunting the villain from the outside.

"Shut up." Fartor returned to inside Fartzilla. Then, a chemical tracker within it detected the signature of potential fuel. He opened Fartzilla's mouth.

Jetpack was cleverly flying outside with Ty in his newfound kohlrabi morph (so Andy wouldn't find out it was him, he kept his eyes shut). Once the mouth was fully opened, Jetpack shot a stream of acid into it, shorting the jaw mechanism.

Fartor struggled to close the robot's mouth, but in doing so he unwittingly caused Fartzilla to gulp huge amounts of oxygen-saturated air.

And you all know how reactive near-pure oxygen is.

* * *

The resulting explosion could be seen for miles around.

Paige, sick and in bed, saw a massive red mushroom cloud through her bedroom window.

"Either the guys are doing something," she said finally, "or I'm having another fever dream."

* * *

All the other Grossologists were back at school and out of uniform. Luckily Andy had not been there to see them leave, and Jetpack had already been out of uniform.

"That was so cool!" Andy, covered head to toe in ash, said to the equally-blackened robot. "We stopped a villain! Ourselves! I wonder if the Grossologists will consider me as a candidate for a new agent. Well, see ya, buddy."

"You too!" Jetpack said.

Once he was gone, Jetpack turned to his teammates. "Can he?"

"Well, we would need official word from The Director, and right now he's happy with just six Grossologists. But I admit, Andy's got potential," Ty said.

"Just like you do," Naomi said. "Sorry if we ever doubted you."

"That's okay. I doubt you guys all the time." And with that Jetpack left, happily whistling his theme song (and yes, all the Grossologists have their own leitmotifs).

"...He does know what 'doubt' means, right?" Abby asked her teammates.

"Nope!" Jetpack answered happily from afar.


	7. Credits Gag

Fartor staggered out from the wreckage of Fartzilla, covered in ash and in pain.

A police car pulled up to the heart of the crater. From it, a burly Hispanic cop emerged. "Fartor," he said, "you are under arrest for disturbing the peace and attempted mass homicide."

"If you're wondering why I'm not dead yet," Fartor said to the reader as he was led away, "it's because capital punishment isn't constitutional in Massachusetts."

The end.

* * *

 **AN: Hope you had fun, because you just met Chester's dad.**


End file.
